Page 9 of The Start of the Story
It needn’t be for long. It had betternotbe for long. I needed my silent solitude.
‘The house is tiny,’ I said, and now I sounded as though the whole thing was a fait accompli and I was making excuses. ‘The spare room isn’t much more than a bed. The hot water can be unreliable, and it’s very quiet, there’s nothing to do in the evenings, and there’s no public transport at all. I’m quite often away too.’
‘But the neighbours don’t howl or play “Who can scream the loudest?” all night?’ Connor looked hopeful. As I’d been so resolutely sour-faced at him on the earlier drive back from the moors, I could infer that boarding with me would be the lesser of two evils by not very much, and the other evil must be very unpleasant indeed. ‘It really would be kind of you, Rowan. Oh, and I like the trousers, by the way. Very – er, colourful.’
I restrained myself from poking him in the eye. He’d actually used my name! Not the vaguely derogatory ‘Dr Thorpe’ that he’d been calling me up to now, as though a doctorate were something to pity. Bringing the belly-dancing gear into the conversation was a touch below the belt, although any touches below the belt would currently make me chime like a clock shop at midnight.
It was the guilt, that was what it was. Guilt, or hypnosis, one or the other. Because I found myself agreeing to host Professor Connor O’Keefe in my spare room, temporarily, mind you, only until he could find something more suitable in town, where the neighbours were reasonable human beings and the rent wasn’t eye-watering. The trousers didn’t help, because I didn’t dare stand up and hold the door open to invite him to leave, as I really wanted to do. The waist was looser than it should have been so I was forced to remain sitting or risk him getting a very close look at my underwear. I was disadvantaged in every way.
‘You’ll need to use taxis,’ I warned sternly. ‘I won’t always be coming into York, or I might need to work late some nights, and I sometimes have to attend conferences and things. I’m not going to be at your beck and call for running you back and forth.’
I carried on sitting, even though it made me feel like an interviewer with a difficult candidate, and very much at a disadvantage.
‘Understood.’
But as he stood up to take his leave and go back to get his things together, I felt a sense of impending doom as deep as though the stone had already been lifted and the grief of the fairies had been let loose on the world.
This was such a bad idea.
5
‘And this is the kitchen,’ I said, awkwardly, leading Connor down the hallway and into the room at the back that overlooked the river. We’d knocked down an outside toilet and extended out, so the walls were bare brick but the windows were huge, with what an estate agent would call ‘extensive river views’.
‘It’s lovely,’ he said, lugging his large case along with him. He had a suit bag draped over his shoulder and another bag dangling from a wrist. I wasn’t quite sure where it was all going to go; if he put all his clothes in the bedroom there wasn’t going to be a lot of room for him. ‘No, really, the cottage is lovely, thank you for this.’
‘I’ll show you your room.’ I backed along the hallway to the bottom of the stairs.
‘So, you renovated the place yourself, then?’ The question was a polite one, the standard query from visitors, usually followed by, ‘How long did it take?’
I hesitated, halfway up the staircase, bracing myself with a hand on each wall. The cottage had been built along the same plans as the mill, narrow steep stairs and rooms of exceptionally odd shapes, and it could take some getting used to. With luck,I thought, he’d find the wobbly layout and ceilings low enough that he’d have to duck in doorways so annoying that he’d be back in York by supper time.
I murmured something vague in response to his question and opened the door to the little spare room. To myself, in my head, I still called it the nursery, but really it was a proper adult spare bedroom: double bed, small chest of drawers and a bedside cabinet. Not enough room to live in for long, but fine for occasional occupation, the odd guest.
My very odd guest put his bag down on the bed and moved to the window with a soft whistle. ‘Wow. Overlooks the river.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Seriously, Rowan, I know we may have got off on the wrong foot back there, but I can’t thank you enough. I’ll be able to get a proper night’s sleep finally.’
An urge to discomfit him overcame me. ‘As long as you’re a heavy sleeper,’ I said. ‘I do Morris dance practice in the kitchen at four every morning, and then my death metal bandmates come round for rehearsals every night. No neighbours to disturb, you see.’
He stared at me for a moment, and then seemed to work out that I was joking. ‘Morris dancing, eh? That explains your trousers earlier. Didn’t know that needed so much practice. Isn’t it mostly flinging your hankie?’
‘It’s the bells,’ I replied, straight-faced. ‘They take a lot of work.’
‘And death metal?’
‘Oh, yes. We’re working on a twenty-minute drum and tuba duet,’ and then even I couldn’t keep it up, and backtracked. ‘No, you’re right. It’s very quiet out here, only the ducks really make much of a noise.’
‘It’s perfect.’
‘There’s no transport, as I said, so if you need to be in York on days I’m not going, you’ll have to book a taxi pick-up.’
‘Ah, it’ll be fine now.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and bounced experimentally. ‘And I don’t snore, so I won’t disturb you. I’m well mannered in the house, clean up after myself and all. Mam brought up five boys and she knew what she was doing.’
I imagined that life. A busy house full of children, the noise and the chatter, toys strewn around floors and a smell of cooking always in the air. I often found myself doing this when I talked to people, as though I were seeing through a window onto another life. It stood me in good stead when I was working, this ability to imagine how people lived, stepping back through time into homes with no electricity when an evening’s entertainment was stories around the fire. It was almost as though the past existed in two parallels. One was the actual way of life, cooking and cleaning and milking the cows – the practicalities – and the other gave insights into the beliefs and nightmares. So it was really my training that made me pick up on his throwaway comment. ‘Five boys? That’s quite a handful. Where did you all grow up?’
‘Mostly outdoors.’ Then he smiled. ‘We’re Dublin born and raised, a good Catholic family, at least, the others are. Me, I’m secular to my fingertips, much to their disappointment, although being a professor helps make up for it. Mam nearly died of pride when Eamonn went into the Church.’
‘Er…’ My mind wheeled around the image of someone’s walking through a church doorway being a cause for family celebration.
‘He’s a priest,’ Connor explained with a grin at my baffled expression. ‘It’s a bit like being related to royalty. I tell them all that I’m a worshipper of Mithras now. I’m not, of course, but it’s worth it to see their faces, even if it does mean I only get half as much dinner when I pop home for the weekend.’ The boards ofthe bedroom floor squeaked as he got up again and went over to the window. ‘Can I open it?’ he asked.
